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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that a former jail inmate can sue the Los Angeles County sheriff over claims that he was stabbed in a racially motivated attack that was encouraged by deputies.

City News Service reports that a three-judge panel ruled Friday that former prisoner Dion Starr had adequately argued in his lawsuit that Sheriff Lee Baca had shown “deliberate indifference” to conditions in jail.

Starr claims that a deputy allowed inmates to attack him.

Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore says there is no factual basis to the complaint.